Is the Supply of Vintage Baseball Cards Drying Up?

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Posted By: Brad Green

I talked with a dealer yesterday at the Chantilly, VA show who seemed to think that the supply of vintage baseball cards is drying up. He's finding it harder and harder to find collections to buy and resell. He was at the Ft. Washington show a few weeks ago and said that even there the amount of vintage cards for sale has reduced over the past few years. He also seems to think that collectors have been buying up the cards for their collections and haven't been releasing them back into the market.

What do you guys think?

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Posted By: identify7

I think that he is telling you the truth regarding his observations, however, I am not sure that his interpertation of these facts is on target.

I do not see a change in the total number of pre-war cards listed on ebay. Although, I have only looked at that number a few times in the past several months.

What I think is happening is there is an increasing willingness and capability of pre-war collectors to sell their material without including a dealer in the sale.

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Posted By: Chris Mc

Based on what I have seen on Ebay I think there are more prewar cards and also a greater variety of type cards that are coming to the market(ebay). There is a bunch of ultra high grade Obaks on right now, I have also seen a least four Drum back t206/205 cards in the last two months, a PCL Old Judge, and a bunch of other rare and one of a kind items. I think the spike in prewar collectors has been driving prices up and bringing out some really beautiful and rare cards out of collections and onto Ebay. I'm like a kid in a candy store, I want the Wonka bar but can only afford the gum. Gil is right about the number of cards on Ebay. I watch the number and as of the last two months, the number of pre 30 cards has been off the charts.2x to 3x as many.

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Posted By: fkw

Right now there is roughly 6500 auctions in the Pre1930, and 8000 in the 1930-39. I can remember when there was around 1000 auction in either category, and a long time ago under 1000 total in the old pre1950 category. I think more people sell their own cards on internet (eBay/websites), and dont sell to dealers, or at shows anymore. Shows have died down alot since the Internet took off in last 10 years.

I dont think they are drying up, they are out there on internet, but no longer at shows, card stores, or in print ads.

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Posted By: Anonymous

To follow up on what Frank was saying, right before I typed this there was 14,450 combined auction lots on eBay for Pre-1930 and 1930-1939 cards. If I am a collector, I would put it on eBay and cut out the middleman, save of course eBay's fees. I have been an eBay member for going on eight years and I can not recall the level of card availability staying at such a high level for so long of a time. I also can't recall it going over 14,000 between the two categories, but I may be wrong because some dealers put a barage of auctions on eBay during certain weeks of the year.

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Posted By: Joann

I think the current number of ebay auctions might be artificially higher, at least for this week - and much of it from dealers rather than individual collectors.

Was there another 10-cent listing special again this week? Again there was page after page after page of BIN's from some of the dealers with extensive inventories (Wheat, 707, Wayne Varner, etc). I hadn't seen any notice of a listing special, but when so many BIN's crash the listings all at once I usually figure one must be on.

So at least sometimes, a much higher percentage of ebay items remain dealer driven. But overall I agree that ebay has given collectors much more direct access to the market, both as buyers and sellers, and increased the volume of traffic overall.

Joann

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Posted By: john/z28jd

Youre right,theres alot of stores inventories on ebay right now.Ever since ebay put in stores with set buy it nows the amount old pre-50 cards has shot up and its mostly due to dealers and people who collect but are willing to sell for a price

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Posted By: Paul

There are a lot of store inventories in the auction section of ebay now because of a 10 cent special.

But ebay has also made a change recently that inflates the number of items in each category. As far as I can tell, all of the store inventories are always listed in (and counted in) their appropriate categories. If you look at the pre-1930 section, you'll see that there are well over 100 pages of listings. The listings at the end are store inventories (and these inventories are unfortunately repeated in the "auction" section of the listings because of the 10 cent special.)

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Posted By: Cobby33

In my opinion, the answer is yes.

I agree with Joann in that the supply seems to be "artificial" for a number of reasons. One reason being the popularity of the pre-war (esp. T206) stuff. People (collectors) who have held onto them are seizing the opportunity to unload them for good prices.

Given that theses are nearly 100 years old, supply couldn't possibly be increasing, if anything, decreasing, as do any 100 year-old treasures.

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Posted By: James Feagin

Which dealer are you referring to at the Chantilly show? (and no, it's not one of our board members) If its the one I'm thinking, he's not realy seeing much turnaround because he charges so darn much. Most of the vintage dealers there have a constant and new supply of quality vintage cards.

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Posted By: T206Collector

"Given that theses are nearly 100 years old, supply couldn't possibly be increasing, if anything, decreasing, as do any 100 year-old treasures."

Well, that is true in terms of total cards in the world. But as far as cards being made available to the average collector, that has certainly increased since the advent of ebay. The barriers to entry into collecting pre-war cards simply does not exist anymore -- well, there will always be a little matter of cost, but you are no longer subject to the supply of your local card store or mall card show. So, in one sense, the availability of pre-war cards has risen dramatically in the last five plus years.

I recall searching for T206 cards on ebay back in 1998-2001, and there were always somewhere between 400 and 800 cards at any given moment. Now the numbers are staggering. And still, price rises. That means that with an increase in supply there is an even greater increase in demand. More collectors dumping their glossy new crap and heading back in history for Cobb, Matty and Lajoie.

Pre-war cards will no longer be thrown away with the trash. What cards exist will just about always exist, or at least won't waste away as quickly as they did during the first 100 years of their existence.

The real question is not whether the supply of vintage cards will dry up. To me, the question is whether the number of collectors of pre-war cards will continue to grow and whether those pre-war collectors will continue to absorb the available supply.

Because eventually we will all die, and unless we are going to be buried with our cards the cards will be redistributed to the masses. Even Frank Nagy's great collection is now part of all of our collections. As the great collectors of the 20th Century pass on their collections to the 21st Century collectors, will there be more of them -- how much will the pie continue to be cut?

When disposable income drops, you will not see as many people collecting cardboard heros. Baseball's popularity is at an all-time high. The Red Sox winning the World Series created a generation of new collectors of cardboard -- people who knew about David Ortiz, but now wanted to learn about Smoky Joe Wood and make that intergenerational connection.

There are a number of factors at work. I think it is amazing that the supply of T206 cards on ebay has grown as much as it has and am also amazed that the availability of the cards also actually drives the demand. Many people cite T206 as their favorite to collect because they can work on it on a daily basis -- they do not have to wait for the available AWH cards in the world to show up every six years.

The impatience of the pre-war collector is more important than supply.

I've waxed on long enough.

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Posted By: Scot Reader

It seems highly unlikely that the supply of prewar cards will ever dry-up. If current supply is inadequate to meet current demand then prices will rise which will result in increased supply. I would think that the only way supply would not rise to meet demand in the face of sufficiently high prices is if prewar collectors who came to control a large percentage of prewar cards stopped acting as rational economic beings and refused to sell at any price. This seems highly unlikely. While noneconomic decisions might lead to unavailability at any price of a few rare cards e.g. T206 Wagner, T210 Jackson, Just So Young etc. for a time, such decisions are unlikely to ever influence the broader prewar market. For myself I can say that I love my prewar cards but there is not one of them that is not available for sale at the right price.

Affordability is another matter. Prewar cards in high grade are becoming increasingly unaffordable to most collectors. But saying that lack of affordability to most collectors means the that the supply of prewar cards has dried-up is like saying that the supply of Park Avenue apartments has dried-up; it seems to me an incorrect characterization of the situation.